


Antarctic Drift

by smilebackwards



Series: Antarctic Drift [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22728796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: Atlantis Prime is the best Jaeger ever built. Of course it is, Rodney built it himself. Too bad he can’t find anyone Drift compatible to pilot it with him.John Sheppard was one of the best Jaeger pilots the program had, until he lost his partner in a Kaiju attack off the coast of Alaska. He’s not eager to go back, but the right Drift partner might just convince him.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: Antarctic Drift [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634419
Comments: 29
Kudos: 143
Collections: Romancing McShep 2020





	Antarctic Drift

“Will you just try again?” Rodney demanded. 

“Rodney,” Carson sighed. “You know it won’t work. We’re not Drift compatible.”

No one in this entire forsaken Shatterdome was Drift compatible, Rodney thought sourly. Atlantis Prime was the best Jaeger ever built—of course it was, Rodney had built it himself. Mark-6 with a plasma cannon and an honest-to-god ZPM reactor, sixty times more powerful than the naquada reactors in the Mark-5s. And it was sitting in the Antarctic Shatterdome, gathering dust. 

Rodney had thought his exile to Validvostok would be the low point in his career. Then he’d been assigned to Antarctica. 

Technically, the Antarctic Shatterdome commanded the largest area of the Pacific. In reality, it was about the lowest you could go—latitude, temperature, political importance. 

Just the place for a beautiful, unusable Jaeger.

“Fine,” Rodney snapped. “I’ll pilot it myself.”

“You can’t pilot it yourself,” Carson said, as if Rodney really needed the reminder. Three days in the infirmary and bright, bloodshot eyes for a week after had taught Rodney that lesson. He wasn’t compatible with Atlantis Prime’s Ancient tech and he wasn’t compatible with Carson, who _was_ able to use the Ancient tech. It was a travesty. Atlantis Prime hummed surely beneath Rodney’s quick, clever fingers, but it didn’t glow, not the bright blue he needed.

Half a dozen people had interfaced with the Ancient tech over the past four years. They’d run the gamut from military to scientists to civilians. None of them had been able to handle the neural load, and none of them had been Drift compatible. Not with each other. Not with Rodney. Not with anyone. 

Carson put a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “Marshal O’Neill will be here tomorrow.”

Perfect, Rodney thought. Perfect Marshal Jack O’Neill who already had a Jaeger and not one but _three_ Drift compatible partners. Team One was famous for all being able to Drift with each other. O’Neill and Jackson usually piloted Abydos Hammond but either of them could just as easily tag in Carter or Teal’c. There was talk of building of a new four-pilot Jaeger, the first ever, for all of them to Drift together. 

There was also talk of them trying Atlantis Prime, to replace the aging Abydos Hammond. Along with all his other windfalls, O’Neill had a strong expression of the Ancient gene.

“He’s not getting Atlantis,” Rodney said. He’d think of something.

-

John held his breath as he strapped on his aviation headset, then blew out a harsh puff of white cold, irritated with himself. It had been years since he’d put on a Jaeger helmet, the bright yellow neural relay gel draining away down his faceplate, but he still couldn’t break himself of the habit.

And now he was headed to the Antarctic Shatterdome. Great.

John hadn’t seen the inside of a Shatterdome for five years. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

The side door opened and John’s passenger slid comfortably into the bucket seat. “Major,” he greeted.

John nodded back. “I should have you to the Shatterdome in just under twenty three minutes, sir,” he said, and started up the rotors.

“They told me on base that you were a pilot,” O’Neill said, once they were in the air, the white ice glinting almost blue beneath them. He waved a hand at the helicopter controls. “A Jaeger pilot I mean.”

“Helo Obsidian,” John said. “Mark-3.” She’d been beautiful. Now she was rubble, decorating the Alaska coastline.

“Alaska,” O’Neill said, clearly familiar with the disaster that had split John’s life like an earthquake. The whole world was familiar with it. John still shredded interview requests at least once a month. Apparently there was a movie being optioned.

“You ever consider a new Jaeger?” O’Neill asked.

“No,” John said, and focused his eyes on the horizon.

-

John would have preferred to drop O’Neill outside the Shatterdome and get the hell out of Dodge, but he was tasked as a return ferry too. Marshal Weir was due back at Peterson for some meeting way above John’s paygrade.

“Elizabeth will be in Command,” O’Neill said, climbing out of the helicopter. 

John followed him resolutely into the domed staging area and down the icy elevator shaft. The Antarctic Shatterdome was twenty stories underground, its Jaeger bay hollowed out to reach a cliffside half a mile away. 

John stared around curiously. It wasn’t much like the Los Angeles Shatterdome where he and Holland had been based and O’Neill’s team now held the coast. They’d maintained the West Pacific Line unbreached for a decade. No casualties, unless you counted the pilots. 

John’s brain did the jitter and skip that he dreaded, chasing the rabbit even outside the Drift: the view of Abaddon out Helo Obsidian’s viewscreen, Holland saying, “John, we need to—” and then nothing but a short cut off scream as he was pulled out of the Jaeger, snapping their connection, sharp as the cut of knife. John had had dozens of brain scans, after. Neurologists pointing at screens and shaking their heads as he sat up on the thin pallet of an MRI machine.

“There’s evidence of cauterization,” Dr. Fraiser had said, “but also of—” She’d paused. “I’m not sure what to call it. The closest thing would be some sort of neural fraying I suppose.” 

John had known exactly what she meant. He didn’t need a scan to tell him how he felt: burnt, raw. Damaged goods. Helo Obsidian had been scrapped and so had John. 

There was a strange-looking chair, pale stone and glass overlaid with silver, smack in the middle of an otherwise empty room. It looked ridiculously like an alien dentist chair but John’s feet walked him over to it in a daze. He didn’t know how but somehow he knew it would be warm.

“Don’t!” someone said in a Scottish brogue, just as John sat down, the chair reclining beneath him and lighting up, blue as a stretch of endless sky.

-

“Major Sheppard just activated the control chair,” Carson said, stumbling into the lab where Rodney was making sure O’Neill understood he was getting Atlantis Prime over Rodney’s dead body.

“Major who?” Rodney asked, sprinting after Carson. All the military and other personnel in the Shatterdome had already been tested for the ATA gene and general population testing was done off-site in Colorado using an Ancient life signs detector. 

But there was someone with spiky black hair and an Air Force jacket sitting in the control chair, looking not a little freaked out. Rodney felt his heart thud, sudden and loud like a drum. 

Ten feet in the air, a hologram was projecting a map with blue concentric circles. Rodney had never seen the chair do that, not even for the other few ATA carriers that had tried it. It hadn’t reclined either, or glowed half so bright.

“You,” Rodney said, pointing at him. He squinted at the nameplate on the soldier’s jacket. “Sheppard, come with me.”

Sheppard jumped out of the chair and trailed after him obediently. Good. There was no point in getting excited if he could activate the control chair but Atlantis Prime didn’t like him. 

“Put your hand here,” Rodney directed.

Sheppard’s hand had barely touched the control pad when Atlantis Prime made a high-pitched whining sound, somehow happy, like steam escaping a kettle, and the shoulder lights turned on, blinking white and blue.

Sheppard wandered over to the ramp to look up at it with all the other scientists who’d stopped to stare. Rodney activated the ZPM with shaking hands and went through the activation sequence: lock, lock, lock. Atlantis Prime’s core lit up like a firework and the sound of applause drifted up toward the control room. 

Rodney’s fingers clenched white around the console. One last chance, he thought, staring over at Sheppard.

-

“No,” John said, flatly. 

He wasn’t taking another Jaeger, wasn’t going through more endless rounds of Drift compatibility assessment. His mind was a raw nerve. It could lash back on anyone in the Drift with him like a snapped rubber band. 

“We can’t hold the coasts,” O’Neill said, abrupt. “Abydos Hammond needs a core transplant that’ll take weeks. Hong Kong lost Vermilion Ghost to Ghidorah three months ago. Kaiju are coming through the rift faster than we can make Jaegers and find candidates to pilot them.”

“No,” John said. That couldn’t be right. “That’s— You have Abydos Hammond in Los Angeles, Delta Renegade in Lima.” Sydney used to have Maverick Venom during John’s tenure but she’d been replaced by a Mark-5. And, “What about Vladivostok?”

“Vladivostok lost Gemini Scythe last week.” 

John had heard about Hong Kong but Russia hadn’t been in the news. He swallowed. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“It happened out to sea. They kept it quiet,” O’Neill said. “With Vermilion Ghost out of commission, Gemini Scythe was covering the majority of the eastern hemisphere. Now it’s just Phoenix Vortex out of Sydney.”

There was no safety net, John thought, throat gone dry. If a Kaiju got past Phoenix Vortex, it could rip through multiple coastal cities before one of the western Jaegers could be airlifted over or the remnants of the old Air Forces could wage a war of attrition. That hadn’t happened since the inception of the Jaeger program. 

“That’s why I came here to try for Atlantis Prime,” O’Neill continued. “Daniel and I were going to see if we could take her to Hong Kong while Carter and Teal’c keep Abydos Hammond in the line up as long as possible.” He looked at John with steady eyes. “But what we really need are more pilots.”

-

They tried John with the military personnel first, Marines a decade younger than him who whipped his ass on the practice mats. John couldn’t believe pummelling the shit out of each other was still the first test for compatibility.

“Let me through,” someone yelled, irritated, as John tried to catch his breath and push himself back up off his knees. “God, this is archaic. How is hitting each other in the face considered a bonding activity?”

The man finally elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. It was the scientist from the Jaeger activation test. “Rodney McKay,” he said. “I’m your co-pilot.”

John looked at Rodney’s straight-backed posture, the defiant jut of his chin, and felt something in him go _click._ They’d be Drift compatible. High threshold. It hit him like a punch to the gut, harder than any of the ones the Marines had thrown at him.

John and Holland had known each other for fourteen years, and they’d only had 82% compatibility. “Close enough,” the brass had said, while the doctors stood back with pinched looks on their faces. 

Every hour John and Holland had spent in the Drift had translated to two days on their backs in the infirmary in the dark with cool cloths on their foreheads while maxed out doses of migraine drugs were pumped through their veins.

But that wasn’t the kind of thing you were allowed to say on talk shows. Holland had been good at those. John, not so much.

John held out a hand to let Rodney pull him up. His arm fit around Rodney’s shoulders like it was meant to be there.

“Okay,” John said, looking at Weir. “He’s my co-pilot.”

-

Rodney knew the math. One in 6.3 million for the ATA gene. One in 8,500 for Drift compatibility. It was why Atlantis Prime had been considered useless for so long. Terrible odds.

But Sheppard had cleared the first hurdle: an ATA gene that made Atlantis Prime light up like a supernova. He and Rodney would be Drift compatible. They had to be.

“I’ll set up the neural handshake test,” Carson had said, looking doubtful.

Sheppard knocked his shoulder against Rodney’s. “We’ll be fine. Run the simulator with me.”

The simulator came with Gaul and Abrams to observe because what Rodney really needed was three people watching him do one of the very few things he was bad at. He could build a drop simulator. He could program a drop simulator. But using one, Rodney vs Kaiju, his drop-kill rate was only 37%. They never would have taken him into the mainstream pilots program.

Rodney had always assumed his Drift partner would be good at that. In the Drift you were supposed to fit together like puzzle pieces, share thoughts and skills as easily as if you were one person. Rodney would be the brains and Sheppard would be the brawn.

“What’s your drop-kill rate?” Rodney asked.

“Ninety-nine percent,” Sheppard said absently. “Ready? Drop.”

 _Wait,_ Rodney thought. _Fuck. Where was the Kaiju?_ The graphics in the simulator were terrible, meant to imitate brutal weather conditions or half underwater battles. The simulator shuddered like they’d been rammed by something Category III and angry.

“Fuck!” Sheppard said. “Hold the controls!”

“Okay!” Rodney yelled, jerking the yoke left.

Sheppard took a deep breath. “It’s fine,” he said. “We’ll practice. And I know how to do it. In the Drift, you’ll know too.”

“Exactly!” Rodney said. They were on the same wavelength already. “We’re fine.”

-

_Neural bridge exercise invalid. Drift sequence terminated. Would you like to try again?_

They weren’t fine. Rodney couldn’t connect to the Drift.

“Your neural activity is extremely high,” Carson said, reviewing Rodney’s scans. His amygdala looked like a stoplight. “You need to calm down. Try some deep breaths.”

“Yes, thank you for your input,” Rodney snapped. If deep breaths was all it took, he would have been piloting Atlantis Prime years ago.

Sheppard patted Rodney on the shoulder. “Let’s go practice somewhere a little less…”

“Cold? Sterile? Unhelpful? ” Rodney bit out.

“Here,” Sheppard said. He gathered up the neural tracker that looked like an old dentistry torture device and guided Rodney out of the infirmary with a hand warm at the base of Rodney’s spine. 

Rodney didn’t exactly consider the barracks more welcoming than the infirmary but at least as an officer Sheppard rated a private room. Rodney looked around at the neatly made twin bed, the Johnny Cash poster hung over it, the battered copy of _War and Peace_ on the nightstand. He shouldn’t have to be curious about them. If he could just Drift with Sheppard, Rodney would have a direct link straight to his mind. They could skip all the messy in-between steps where Rodney usually faltered.

Sheppard opened his laptop and connected the neural tracker. “Here,” he said, handing it back to Rodney. Their fingers brushed and Rodney swallowed. Maybe he didn’t want Sheppard to know everything in his head. 

“Close your eyes,” Sheppard said. “Count backward from a hundred. In primes.”

Rodney cracked an eye open but Sheppard didn’t look like he was messing with him. _97, 89, 83, 79, 73, 71, 67, 61, 59, 53, 47._

“Nothing’s happening,” Rodney said. He didn’t even know what was supposed to happen. _You’ll know when it happens,_ all the pilots always said in interviews and documentary video. Supposedly it was like falling in love. Except Rodney had never done that either. 

“43,” Sheppard said, somehow having picked up right where Rodney left off. And maybe that was the problem. Rodney had looked at Sheppard in the control chair, limned in blue, and something in his chest had gone _click._ Maybe he _had_ fallen in love. But he couldn’t just _say_ that to Sheppard. He couldn’t just enter the Drift and let Sheppard _see_ that. 

Plenty of Jaeger pilots fell in love romantically but it wasn’t some guarantee. All four of the current Jaeger teams were family or platonic bonds as far as anyone knew, no matter how often O’Neill and his team were badgered in interviews.

Just Rodney’s luck that his only potential Drift partner was excruciatingly attractive, with a 99% drop-kill rate and a penchant for heroics.

“I can’t do this,” Rodney said, ripping off the tracker.

-

John found Rodney in the commissary, drinking from the vodka stash the Russian contingent kept hidden in a panel inside the elevator shaft. The bottom inch of the bottle was still frozen solid.

John kicked out the chair beside him and sat down, loose-limbed and weary. 

“You have to let go,” John said, fully aware of the irony. Holland had repeated it to him over and over when they were first trying to calibrate in the Drift. ‘Open’ wasn’t an adjective anyone had ever used to describe John. 

Rodney poured him a shot.

John threw it back before he said, “Look, I know I’m a risk. If you’re having second thoughts, I understand.” He hadn’t exactly been anyone’s top choice for a partner, even before what happened with Holland.

John could probably find another low compatibility Drift partner. It wasn’t like the PPDC could afford to be picky at this point. He doubted he’d survive longer than a year with anyone lower than 70% compatibility but maybe the program would have found more pilot matches by then. John had always been a stopgap. No one actually wanted him in the driver’s seat of a Jaeger, protecting a quarter billion people. He was a necessity, not a choice. 

“A risk?” Rodney said. At least he was looking at John now.

“I was still connected to Holland when he died, Rodney,” John said. “Half my brain is scar tissue. I don’t blame you if you’re afraid to try to Drift with me.” John wasn’t even sure _he_ wanted Rodney to take the risk.

“What?” Rodney squawked. “That’s not— I— Oh, goddamn it.” He made a frustrated noise and pressed it into John’s lips.

“Oh,” John said, after, “Jesus, Rodney, you don’t need to worry about _that_ ,” and kissed him back.

-

It was so _easy._ Rodney took a deep breath and let himself fall.

_His fingers sliding across piano keys. The cold exile of Vladivostok. Dave pushing him—John—him—on the swings at recess. Helo Obsidian wrecked on the shores of Alaska._

John’s mind slotted beside his, in perfect sync, as strange and warm as if they were holding hands.

-

“There will be Category IV Kaiju in the next twenty minutes,” Zelenka said with perfect equanimity. 

“Where on earth did you pull that prediction from,” Rodney asked, irritated. 

“Here,” Zelenka said, presenting Rodney with his notes. “As I have been _trying_ to tell you. While you have been preparing to play hero, I have been _working._ ”

Rodney skimmed the math. _Yes. Fine. Wait, that couldn’t be right…_

But math didn’t lie. And Zelenka’s algorithm read like a countdown clock, ticking inexorably toward zero, and moving fast. 

“Get Atlantis Prime prepped!” Rodney yelled, before he turned and sprinted down the corridor. 

-

_Knock, knock, knockknockknock._

John caught Rodney by the shoulders as he barrelled into John’s room. “Whoa. Whoa, Rodney. What’s going on?”

Rodney’s hands clenched tight around John’s arms. “There’s a Category IV coming. We need to go.”

John felt all his training snap back into place. “Okay,” he said, grabbing his jacket, “let’s do this.” 

The proximity alarm klaxons rang out. _Kaiju alert. Category IV. 9000 tons._

God, they hadn’t even been fitted for the circuitry suits yet. 

But they had done half a dozen perfect drop-kill simulations. And they’d held a strong neural handshake for hours. John hadn’t felt so much as a hangover afterward. They had one of the highest recorded compatibility rates straight out the gate. They could do this, easy.

Chuck handed John his helmet and John stared down at the transparent faceplate, familiar and foreign all at once. He slipped it over his head and locked the seal.

“Hold your breath,” John said to Rodney. He’d swallowed an accidental mouthful of the neural relay gel once. It tasted like chalk and electricity.

“This is entirely undignif—,” Rodney protested but then the pale yellow gel was draining away and they were together in the Drift. John reached for the frantic-excited buzz of Rodney’s mind. _Calibration complete._

The drop from the Antarctic shelf was sharper than any of the bay drops John and Holland had done from Los Angeles but Atlantis Prime handled it like a champ. 

“Where is it?” Rodney asked. “John—”

The viewscreen went pebbled dark. An arm, a flank, and then the Kaiju’s huge, finned head broke the surface of the ocean and reared back in a scream. 

“Hold tight, Rodney,” John said, feeling an unnatural calm settle in his bones. He’d always been good at this part. “You’re a fucking stone, Shep,” Holland had said, once. John could feel his echo in the Drift but he let it go. 

“Rodney,” he said, “plasma cannon,” and felt Rodney’s arm cock back with his own, Atlantis Prime mirroring them at 100 scale. 

The Kaiju bore down on them. “Now!” John yelled and Atlantis Prime unleashed 15 million volts through its flesh.

“Yes!” Rodney cried, as the Kaiju sank slowly beneath the waves. “Who’s a useless Jaeger _now_?” 

“Don’t get cocky,” John warned, but he’d never seen a Kaiju go down like that after one hit. Whether it resurfaced for another round or not, Atlantis Prime was going to be crowned the undisputed champion of the current crop of Jaegers. They’d be on cereal boxes and backpacks within a week. 

Cullen Tonight would probably want them but John and Rodney would be a trainwreck on the talk show circuit. Marshal Weir would have to take that. At this though, John thought, watching the Kaiju’s razorback emerge from the waves and feeling the gathering charge in Atlantis Prime’s rocket elbow, Rodney’s determination in parallel with his own—at this, they were going to be _fantastic._


End file.
